New Release Round-up,
New Release Round-Up - 28th February 2020
Today’s new releases include Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto and Verklärte Nacht from Isabelle Faust and friends, an Offenbach opéra bouffe about a Spanish chocolatier from Palazzetto Bru Zane, two popular Beethoven piano trios from the Capuçon Brothers and Frank Braley, and a live recording of the Metropolitan Opera’s hugely acclaimed recent Porgy & Bess, starring Eric Owens, Angel Blue, and Denyce Graves.
Schoenberg: Violin Concerto & Verklärte Nacht
Isabelle Faust (violin), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding
Faust is widely recognised as one of the finest exponents of Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto (her recording of the work with the late Claudio Abbado in 2012 won a Gramophone Award, and she performed the piece with Andris Nelsons in a memorial concert for Abbado two years later); now she turns her attention to another Second Viennese School concerto, coupled here with Verklärte Nacht, for which she is joined by musicians including Antoine Tamestit , Christian Poltéra, and Jean-Guihen Queyras.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Volume One of Gardner’s CBSO Schubert cycle (itself a sequel of sorts to their extremely popular ‘Mendelssohn in Birmingham’ series on the same label) received five stars in BBC Music Magazine, who described the conductor as ‘very much on his way to Beechamesque status, though with very clear ideas of his own’; this new instalment includes the two Rossini-inspired Overtures in the Italian Style as well as Symphonies Nos. 2 & 6.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This exploration of the horn’s evolution over the course of the eighteenth century begins and ends with music by the Mozarts, opening with Leopold’s Sinfonia di camera in D, and finishing with his son’s great Horn Quintet from nearly fifty years later. The programme also includes works by Telemann, Haydn and Graun, and two short concertos of unknown origin.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The fifth volume of Bavouzet’s Mozart series (described by Gramophone as ‘a serious front-runner in a cycle of works that has never wanted for fine recordings’) focuses on music which the composer wrote between the ages of 15 and 25 and includes his first bona fide keyboard concerto, No. 5 (the previous four being essentially arrangements of music by other composers) as well as the overtures to Il sogno di Scipione, Lucio Silla, La finta giardiniera, Il re pastore, and Zaide.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beethoven: 'Archduke' & 'Ghost' Piano Trios
Renaud Capuçon (violin), Gautier Capuçon (cello), Frank Braley (piano)
Both Capuçon brothers have recorded the complete sonatas for their respective instruments with Braley (International Record Review described Renaud’s accounts of the violin sonatas in 2009 as ‘unfailingly civilised and thoughtful’, while Gautier’s set of the cello sonatas and variations in 2016 was praised in Gramophone for the ‘perfect unanimity of ensemble and admirable clarity of texture’ on display); now all three join forces for two of the most popular piano trios.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
The first instalment of the Italian pianist’s Scarlatti survey was one of our Recordings of the Year in 2018, and prompted International Piano to observe that ‘this pianist is brilliantly alive to Scarlatti’s infinite variety’; this second volume is already attracting similar praise, with The Sunday Times describing the playing and programming as ‘brilliantly illuminating’ earlier this month. You can read Katherine’s 2018 interview with Colli about the project here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
42 years on from his first studio recording of the late Beethoven sonatas (which marked the beginning of a cycle which he would eventually complete in 2014), the great Italian pianist returned to the Herkulessaal in Munich last September to record the last three works live in front of a select audience; speaking shortly before the performance he declared that ‘after playing these works many, many times over the last forty years, I have always discovered new riches in every detail.’
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recorded on the organ of Coventry Cathedral (where Mahon, a native of Toronto, is Assistant Director of Music), this recital of music by Healey Willan, Gerald Bales, Ruth Watson Henderson and Rachel Laurin was an Editor’s Choice in this month’s Gramophone, with Marc Rochester declaring that ‘Mahon has done Canadian organ music proud in this outstanding recording’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Offenbach: Maître Péronilla
Chantal Santon-Jeffery, Antoinette Dennefeld, Tassis Christoyannis, Véronique Gens, Éric Huchet; Orchestre National de France Markus Poschner
Subtitled La femme à deux maris (‘The Wife of Two Husbands’), Offenbach’s 1878 opéra bouffe is a real rarity, and like Bizet’s Carmen (which premiered three years earlier) makes much use of Spanish dances and orchestral colours; the plot bears more than a passing resemblance to Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and concerns a master chocolatier’s plans to marry off his daughter to an elderly nobleman.
Available Formats: 2 CDs + Book, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
Eric Owens (Porgy), Angel Blue (Bess), Latonia Moore (Serena), Golda Schultz (Clara), Denyce Graves (Maria), Frederick Ballentine (Sportin’ Life), Alfred Walker (Crown), Ryan Speedo Green (Jake), Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, David Robertson
This new production of the Gershwins’ masterpiece opened the Met’s 2019/20 season last September, and was such a success that three extra performances were given earlier this month’; The New York Times judged Eric Owens’s Porgy to be ‘one of the finest performances of his distinguished career’, whilst The Economist described soprano Angel Blue as ‘an extraordinary Bess’.
Available Format: 3 CDs
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
